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Patent Trolls: Supreme Court Decision Weakens Frivolous Patent Suits
Patent trolling, a lucrative business that can collect huge sums of money when an Intellectual Property (IP) patent claim is violated. The problem has been that often the claims are frivolous or false, but the cost just to research and fund a legal team to defend against a single case can be expensive, often as much as $3 million per case. Trolls are often willing to settle out of court for sums like $500,000 to $1 million because it’s cheaper for a company to do that then to defend itself in court.
A 2015 study by Boston University estimated that patent litigation costs businesses more than $60 billion every year.
Apple has been a top target of these cases. In 2015, 25 patent suits were brought against Apple, and 21 suits were brought against Actavis and Amazon, respectively.
In June of this year though, the Supreme Court supported a new procedure that the government is trying to use to weed out patent infringement cases that are weak. On trial was the legality of a new procedure adopted by the Patent Office that makes it easier for companies to challenge patents that are outright bad without having to first spend much time and money in the process of defending against them.
In the Supreme Court’s decision, Justice Stephen Breyer, wrote that the Patent Office approach “helps to protect the public” by preventing individuals and companies from claiming overly broad patents that “might discourage the use of the invention by a member of the public.”
